AllCreative: a new film series to inspire young creative careers

Published: 22 Oct 2016
By Patrick Burgoyne

“AllCreative has a simple ambition,” says its founder, AMV BBDO creative chief Paul Brazier, “To reveal every creative job in the form of a short film that will inspire people a step closer to their chosen career. From a young age, I was given the impression that the creative arts were secondary and inferior to an academic career path. Later in life, I realised just how huge the creative industries are and their importance to Britain.”

Brazier, who is also an ex-President of D&AD, has funded the project himself. Over the past four years, he has filmed practitioners from across the creative industries in the hope that their example can demonstrate to schools, parents and young people the array of opportunities that exist within the creative industries.

“Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the best British creative talent, but it was back in 2010 that I realised just how big the creative industries are, Brazier says. “When I was President of D&AD that year, I saw the scale and variety of creative work that was brought into Olympia for judging. I’ve always been interested in and respected all of the creative skills and disciplines and each day of the week we saw a new set of work that filled the size of an aircraft hangar. Everything from advertising through to Apple Macs. I’ve never seen such a quality of work on such scale. And it dawned on me that this was just the tip of the iceberg: this was only the work that the creators deemed worthy of entering or frankly could afford to enter into this awards event.

“It made me wonder just how much more work was being produced in the UK and all of the specialist jobs there must be. It also made me wonder whether all of the schools and educationalists knew about these jobs and how difficult it must be to educate and prepare children for these areas. And I also wondered whether most parents knew that these creative opportunities existed for their children?” he continues.

Like many creative professionals, Brazier frequently gives talks at universities. “It’s something I love doing, especially if the students have chosen this career path. If they have, they find it beneficial. But I’ve always wanted to broaden the conversation into other creative areas,” he says. “I realised, up and down the country, there were many fellow professional creative people all doing similar talks on their chosen fields. Then the idea struck me, why not house all of these talks into one website. Short films would broaden their reach and also give valuable context of seeing these professional creatives in their working environment.”

For each film, Brazier’s film crews “went to the professionals to show where they work and to explain how they go about their job: they give their views, everything is totally unscripted,” he explains.

The films don’t just feature ‘star’ names: there are also interviews with people at the start of their carers, such as womenswear startup Rix & McCloskey and stylist Abdul Adama.

AllCreative website

All the films can now be viewed at the AllCreative website, which was built by Campbell Hay. The AllCreative identity was designed by Barnbrook – Jonathan Barnbrook also features in one of the films.

“I’d like to thank all of the extraordinary people who have helped produce these films, not just in front of the camera but behind it too. They didn’t have to, they wanted to,” Brazier says. “Creative people seem to have a big heart and want to help the next generation. It’s probably because they understand just how difficult and frustrating it can be to get started.”